"Waiting on" Wednesday: A Certain Age

As the freedom of the
Jazz Age transforms New York City, the iridescent Mrs. Theresa Marshall
of Fifth Avenue and Southampton, Long Island, has done the unthinkable:
she’s fallen in love with her young paramour, Captain Octavian Rofrano, a
handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. An intense and deeply
honorable man, Octavian is devoted to the beautiful socialite of a
certain age and wants to marry her. While times are changing and she
does adore the Boy, divorce for a woman of Theresa’s wealth and social
standing is out of the question, and there is no need; she has an
understanding with Sylvo, her generous and well-respected philanderer
husband.

But their relationship subtly shifts when her bachelor
brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the sweet younger daughter of a
newly wealthy inventor. Engaging a longstanding family tradition,
Theresa enlists the Boy to act as her brother’s cavalier, presenting the
family’s diamond rose ring to Ox’s intended, Miss Sophie Fortescue—and
to check into the background of the little-known Fortescue family. When
Octavian meets Sophie, he falls under the spell of the pretty ingénue,
even as he uncovers a shocking family secret. As the love triangle of
Theresa, Octavian, and Sophie progresses, it transforms into a saga of
divided loyalties, dangerous revelations, and surprising twists that
will lead to a shocking transgression . . . and eventually force Theresa
to make a bittersweet choice.

Full of the glamour, wit and
delicious twists that are the hallmarks of Beatriz Williams’ fiction and
alternating between Sophie’s spirited voice and Theresa’s vibrant
timbre, A Certain Age is a beguiling reinterpretation of Richard
Strauss’s comic opera Der Rosenkavalier, set against the sweeping
decadence of Gatsby’s New York. - from Goodreads